A data center, cloud resource, or the like, may be implemented in the form of a converged infrastructure (CI). The CI is a set of integrated Information Technology (IT) components, such as storage, network, compute, and virtualization software and/or device components. Vendors of the various CI components typically provide validated design blueprints in the form of human readable specifications that define to a user extensive step-by-step manual procedures required to perform critical operations on the components. Such operations include provisioning (i.e., initially configuring or setting-up), reconfiguring/modifying, inventorying, and assessing/validating the CI components. Therefore, the user is required to step through painstaking manual procedures set forth in the blueprints to perform the critical operations. This is time consuming and burdensome for the user.
A given design blueprint generally assumes specific, fixed hardware and/or software configurations of each of the storage, network, compute, and virtualization components of the CI. The assumed CI configurations support the critical operations defined in the blueprint. In practice, however, the CI components often have unknown operational configurations that vary or deviate from the assumed configurations. The configuration differences complicate interactions between the user, the blueprint, and the actual CI components because the user is forced to detect the differences manually and then make corresponding adjustments in order to follow the blueprint. This adds complexity and cost to performing the critical operations on the CI components.